Mafia Gazette Issue 40-2002
Page 1 HISTORY FILE SPECIAL With it being new years eve and people’s thoughts drifting to the past as well as the future I have decided to do a special edition of the history file. It is a rather long story from the past, but if you read it carefully, it almost applies today as much as it did then, just replace another crew bosses name for that which appears in the story, and you can see how history tends to repeat all the more often than people think it does. ''THE RUMBLEFISH STORY '' A couple of days ago, while I was working on another story, a man walked into the Gazzette office, placed a large package on the desk and walked out again. No-one in the office took much notice as there are always people coming and going during the day. The package was addressed to me, so I opened it carefully. Under the nondescript brown wrapping paper, there was a box and when I opened it I discovered papers- bundles of letters, a heap of handwritten sheets, a couple of slim leather books and some memo slips. I started reading. After only a couple of minutes, I realised just what had been delivered to me by that anonymous man. The signature on the bottom of one of the sheets was as distinctive as a fingerprint. I was looking at the diaries, notes and letters of the infamous RumbleFish. I read for hours, stopping only to top up my coffee cup from the rapidly cooling jug by the window. The shadows lengthened and it was night by the time I left the office, my head reeling from all I had discovered. I wondered why it had come into my hands, who would have given it to me for safekeeping, and the only answer I could come up with was that someone wanted the story told. Someone wanted all the rumours quashed and the truth to come out, and I was the one who had to do it. So here it is, the truth as I read it from the letters and notes, the occasional scribblings in the diary and a handful of old memos. I know it isn’t complete, but this was all he wrote- there were too many blank pages and too much speculation, so I have only written about the things that he himself wrote about. He started as a nobody, a thug, he had never been anything before, just an ordinary man doing an ordinary job, but then he got into petty crime. His first day in the city he looked around and started getting familiar with the territory. He found out about Sims, a Wise-Guy with a crew of about 40 and just about the most powerful man in the Mob. He sent Sims a message asking to join his crew saying he was going to be the best Mobster Sims had ever seen. He asked what he got in return for joining Sims crew. What he got was laughed at, so he told Sims to kill him if he wanted, Sims replied that he could appreciate a little attitude for a change, and let him live. Alredy RumbleFish’s attitude was starting to show. In his diary he wrote “Sims is the most powerful guy in the country without doubt, and there was me, a thug, talkin shit to Sims” He didn’t join Sims crew, he went off and joined up with another crew boss, Sauron. He spent all his spare time getting experience at everything he could, especially honing his killing skills. He used thugs for target practice, back in the days when they weren’t protected. He wrote about it in his diary later saying “I would wack 10 an hour, sometimes more”. The more he killed, the better he got, and the more skilled he was, the higher up in the crew he got. Within three days he was an Earner and had stopped killing thugs and moved onto Gangsters and Goombas too. His attitude grew the higher up he got, the more he killed, the more self-assured he was. When he hit Earner status he happened to be passing through Chicago. At that time Sims had a stranglehold on the city, and anyone spending the night paid a tax,either with cash or with their life. RumbleFish was asked for the money, at that point it was $1,000 per night, times your rank. Rumblefish sent back a message asking if that meant Sims wanted $4,000. “You’re an Earner already?” came the reply “Why did you join a crew so quick? Why don’t you leave it and join mine?”. RumbleFish wasn’t ready to leave Sauron however, and said he would think about it. Sims obviously had realised that RumbleFish had meant what he said when he first made the comment about being a big player, and realised the opportunity he had missed by not taking RumbleFish into his crew. Trouble started brewing only a couple of days later when Sims and another crew boss, LazyBoy seemed to be falling out. Sauron and his crew were allied with LazyBoy, but like most others on the site, Sauron was in awe of Sims and didn’t want to be on the wrong side of the powerful man. RumbleFish and another of Sauron’s Earners, SonnyAndolini started preparing the crew for war, telling everyone to ready themselves for what was ahead. RumbleFish was ready and wanted to start the killing, but Sauron stopped him, wanting no part in this fight between his allies and a man he feared to stand against. When it was pointed out by Rumblefish that “Allies of Lazyboy” was part of the crew quotes, Sauron made them all take it out, all except RumbleFish and SonntAndolini who refused, saying that they had sworn loyalty to LazyBoy and they weren’t backing out of it now. The following day Sauron was dead. No-one knew who pulled the trigger, but everyone was sure that Sims was somewhere behind the gunman, if not the finger on the triger itself. RumbleFish and SonnyAndolini joiined LazyBoy’s crew when Sauron’s dissolved on his death. LazyBoy decided he wanted nothing to do with Sims Chicago Tax, and in RumbleFish’s own words “Told him to stick his Chicago Tax up his ass” and refused to pay. Shortly after that conversation, PoisonIvy, one of LazyBoy’s Earners turned up dead in Chicago, no warnings, nothing. LazyBoy knew what had happned, and went out into the streets and publicly declared war on Sims. At that point everybody laughed, because they thought that Sims and his crew were untouchable. What they did not know was that there were three trained killers in Lazyboy’s crew- LazyBoy himself, a man called Landucci, but also know as Profit, and RumbleFish made up the trio of assasins. LazyBoy and Landucci were better killers than Rumblefish, he even admits it in his writings, but he still had the killing ability to be able to keep up with his boss. Sims by this point had nearly 60 in his crew. Within two days that number had nearly halved. RumbleFish’s diary is blank through this period and all he says after is “I killed so many people that I can’t remember who most of them were”. Thugs were the main casualties in this war with everyone using them as target practice, trying to hone their killing skills, Gangsters were a close second in the dying stakes. This eventually made the Administration make it impossible to kill Thugs to stop this sort of thing happening again. Sims would have fought till his last man fell or he himself was killed, but his right hand man, BigAlTheFish talked him into accepting a truce and the idea was that BigAlTheFish would transfer over to LazyBoy’s crew, and RumbleFish would go to replace him in Sims’. At that point LazyBoy decided to take an extended holiday, something to do with his health was all he would say, so Rumblefish was left in control of the crew. This put a stop to the plan of the exchange, but it brought about the idea of the Big 5 Syndicate, which would mean 5 Bosses running the 5 Cities. The Big 5 Syndicate idea was that Sims would hold Chicago, DoblesLady was going to rule Las Vegas, BigAlTheFish would leave Sims crew and set up his own in New York, Morgoth666 was in New Orleans and RumbleFish himself was to take Los Angeles. At that point two other notable people had crews: Imperial187 had a crew in New York and Saint had a crew beside Morgoth666 in New Orleans, they were told to disband their crews or die. The same went for anyone else with a crew, there were to be no other crews than the Big 5. Sims was the only Made Man at this point, the rest of the crew bosses were Wise-Guys. Things went well for a short while, then a bunch of Thugs came on the scene, calling themselves UKAN. They decided they disliked the idea of the monopoly of the Big 5 and rebelled against it. They directed the most of their attack at Rumblefish, possibly because he was the one that pushed back against them hardest. They tried to disrupt the uneasy peace that had descended with the forming of the syndicate, and many of the mobsters who were disgruntled with the way the syndicate had been formed, or the way their crews had been threatened, joined the UKAN uprising. They didn’t rise very far, RumbleFish killed them at every opportunity. They really irritated him, and it made him decide it was time for a change. If no-one else was going to stand with him, he would stand alone, or alongside people who thought like him. His first move was to ask LazyBoy to come back from his extended leave, which he did, willingly. The whole of the crew got transferred back to LazyBoy as Rumblefish stepped back into the role of underboss. The unholy trio of LazyBoy, Landucci and Rumblefish reunited again, went on another killing spree. He wrote “We killed DoblesLady, Morgoth666, Imperial187, BigAlTheFish and finally even Sims”. RumbleFish was clever though, he blamed every killing on the UKAN faction, and people believed him. LazyBoy finally couldn’t take it any more. He handed the crew back to Rumblefish, tidied all his affairs, and shot himself. Rumblefish was left the sole heir to all 5 cities and everyone found out how he had used the UKAN as a cover up. All his haters came out of the woodwork then, some calling themselves the Western Alliance, the Secret Society, UKAN, just about anyone who had a grudge against RumbleFish started trying to knock him down, kill him and take his crew to pieces. Paranoia took him over then, and everyone who spoke even the slightest word against him was seen as a threat and was killed. The more he killed, the better he became at it, and the better he bacame at killing, the better he was at knowing how to avoid being killed. The resistance groups slowly died out, or their members realised that they could not kill RumbleFish with direct actions. The killings were all done by RumbleFish and his 2 main hitmen, Smokey and Noodles, the two people he trusted most in his crew. He decided to let other crews form but they had to be allies. No-one who was against RumbleFish would be allowed to set up against him, he was still very paranoid in the wake of the “resistance”. He set up the Untouchables, another Syndicate, this time run by himself. The new crew bosses were Premeir, Imperial187, Daniella, Saint and Maverick and all swore loyalty to RumbleFish. Maverick gained power and crew fast, Daniella, Premeir and Saint all got to Made Man and Rumblefish started to have more moments of paranoia. His two hitmen were at him almost constantly to take down the other crew bosses and made his trigger finger itch. Smokey and Noodles were worried that the other crews were gaining too much power, especaially with Daniella and Mavericks crews growing so quickly. The pressure from below finally took its toll, that and the loss of respect from people. They equated crew size with power, rather than with the quality of the crew. People started to publicly mock RumbleFish in the streets, or message him saying they wanted to be in his crew, then turning down his invitation and joining up with a different boss like Maverick or Daniella. His trigger finger got more and more itchy as time went on, and his crew grew more restive. He wrote in his diary “Maverick is the only one I trust completely. Premeir I trust pretty good, but Maverick I trust 100%. I will spare her. It is nothing personal I will do to Premeir, I just figure if he is gone, he will be one less person to worry about turning on us”. His paranoia had got to a stage where he didn’t even trust his ex-crewmember. He made his move soon after writing that. He took out Saint: “First Made Man I ever clipped” he wrote. In public however, he played the injured friend like a pro. He didn’t want anyone suspecting what he was doing, he trusted no-one with his plans. He knew Saint would be a threat to his plans to become Godfather, but he didn’t know if he could actually get that close to him, so Saint was first. If he failed, RumbleFish knew he was a dead man, so he bided his time till he could get the perfect shot. One bullet straight to the head and as the smoke cleared and the talk died down RumbleFish started to write a list. It took him a while to compile his list but eventually it was done. Every Earner in every crew was on that list, including some of his own men whom he didn’t trust. He started his killing then, one every hour, like some macabre game, finding the ones sleeping without protection or while they were in the bath. Any time they were alone they were a target if his stopwatch had ticked round to the fatal numbers. No-one suspected him. By the time anyone knew of the deaths he was long gone, his trail as cold and dead as his victims corpses. He sat back in his office and watched as the streets went into turmoil, everyone looking for the new serial killer, and all the time he sat there, like a cat, just watching the seconds tick off the life of the next person on the list. No-one suspected Rumble. He lost some of his earners to the serial killer too, or so the others thought. He even rid himself of a Wise-Guy too who he suspected of being a traitor, and the people sent him condolences on his loss. He was paranoid to the extent that anyone could have been his next victim, anyone except Maverick.. He killed 8 of her Earners, even though she was a friend. He then killed Premeir, got Maverick to kill Daniella and was on the point of taking out Maverick when he stopped. He remembered an almost forgotten favour that she had done him a long time ago that made him no longer doubt her faith in him and he could not break that faith. He honoured his truce with her and confessed to killing her Earners. She must have understood the poison of pressureand the paranoia that was running through RumbleFishes veins and forgave him. Their truce continued on, with them being the only two bosses on the site. Any who dared to start crews were swiftly dealt with. Only when RumbleFish had reached the status of Capo would he allow any more crews to form, such was his distrust in others. More uprisings started, the erstwhile leader mocking RumbleFish’s name and turning some of RumbleFish’s trusted crew against him. People whispered to him of plots and schemes and mentioned names and played on RumbleFish’s paranoia. Many died for working from within for the resistance. JFK killed one of the loyal crew, Vito_Genovese. Maverick made sure he would not repeat his actions by taking JFK down herself. DiLuccio was suspected of working with the resistance and his corpse turned up very soon after. Noodles was killed by another traitor in the crew who was swiftly dealt with by RumbleFish. Buffy became fishfood and joined his fellow conspirators in the bay. JimmyDaCleaner was one of the next victims of the traitor clearout, but his brother came to collect the body and swore vengance on RumbleFish. As he was no killer JimmyDaCleaner’s brother, known only as JDC went round asking people for money, anyone who was against Rumblefish was asked. The money was given to someone that RumbleFish would not possibly suspect to be used to buy a hitman, and for the first time in living memory, a hit of an extrordinary ammount went on the hit list. $4.4 Million was the sum, but people knew if they tried and failed they would soon be dead. No-one claimed that massive bounty. RumbleFish was tipped off as to who had placed the hit by the one other person he trusted to set up a crew, JimmyTheSaint, who was a brother of LazyBoy and as which had RumbleFish’s trust. His guns came out of their case again, one shot between WackoMatic’s eyes, and the bounty was dropped, as there was no-one there to pay any potential hitman the fee. The smoke cleared, the dead bodies were removed and the rumours started. RumbleFish was invincible some said, they claimed that the Administration had made him unkillable, that he had bribed the Chief Administrator into making him bulletproof. This disgusted and saddened RumbleFish. While it was true he was a friend of the Administration, there was no way he would try to bribe his friend. He made a decalration in the street that he had not and would never do such a thing as to bribe his friends in Administration, and he would not have their names brought down by such malicious lies. RumbleFish then went to see his friend Maverick and gave him his money, she knew at the last minute what he would do, but was too late to stop RumbleFish from carrying out what he planned. From here, I will let him tell it in his own words, from his last diary entry. “I started out in this life as a killer hell bent on taking over and running the whole show. Some time ago I decided I didn’t want to kill any more, I just wanted to make it to Godfather, to reach my goal in life. Others it seems have different ideas and want to bring me down. They say I am heartless and that I trust no-one. Not even my closest friends are safe from their spiteful lies. There is only one way I can prove these lies to be what they are, untruths made up by those who envied and hated me, so I will kill myself, to spare the good names of my friends. To all those that thought I was cheating the system, it looks like you were wrong. To my friends and trusted allies, do not miss me, just achieve what I could not. Make it to Godfather and think of me when you get there”. He then put his own gun, the one he carried through all his life in the Mob, into his mouth, and his itchy trigger finger did the move it knew so well for one last time.